In the 1990s, wildlife biologist Gary Alt was something of a celebrity because of his work on black bear research in Pennsylvania. Even non-hunters knew who Alt was, in large part because of PBS specials and magazine articles showing amazingly cute baby bears in their dens as researchers on Alt’s team collected blood samples and studied the health of bear mothers.

By the latter part of that decade, Alt admits he felt a little uneasy with the fame and accolades he received over the resurgence of the black bear population in the Keystone State. Numbers had increased from about 2,500 bears in the 1970s to 15,000 in recent years, a result perhaps more about increased habitat for bears than actual management efforts on the part of Alt and the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

But a visit with his friend John Dzemyan in the Northern Tier of Pennsylvania would change the arc of Alt’s professional life and put him in the eye of a storm that would be whitetail deer management.

Dzemyan, then a lands manager with the PGC based in Smethport, showed Alt areas that had been clearcut and then plots fenced to keep out deer. The difference of the plots — the fenced-in areas lush with thick and diverse new growth while the unfenced areas were cropped down to the dirt by too-high populations of deer — stunned Alt.

“I was shocked at what I saw,” he told an audience Sunday during the Deer Season Kickoff hosted by the Kinzua Quality Deer Cooperative (KQDC) at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford. “It was just so clear the difference between the two sides of the fence.”

If he was shocked by the results of the simple fencing demonstration, Alt, a lifetime deer hunter who plans his entire fall around the Pennsylvania archery and gun seasons, was also galvanized to use his training and expertise to steer Pennsylvania toward management practices that would be more sustaining — not only for the deer herd but for all plants and wildlife.

But, oh, the controversy.

“Deer hunting in Pennsylvania is more than just a sport,” Alt said. “It’s more like a religion … it’s so core to us and we don’t want to change it.”

The change Alt and his team would push for was a better overall balance in deer numbers for the habitat that was there to sustain them. What that meant was harvesting more antlerless deer than ever before — almost a blasphemy to many in the hunting culture of Pennsylvania — while also reaching a greater balance in the number of bucks taken versus the number of antlerless deer.

The pushback from hunters and their advocacy groups was intense, which meant the pushback soon crept into the Capitol in Harrisburg. Even the commissioners of the PGC were leery of changes made to the traditions of Pennsylvania deer hunting. The lobbying and political aspects of the effort eventually soured Alt on his work for the PGC — but he believes it was worth it in the end.

“I knew I would pay a price for it,” he said. “But what was most important was a healthy deer herd. There came to be so much criticism and anger in my life … but I would do it again in a minute.”

The critical changes were increased antlerless permits, running the so-called “doe season” in tandem with the two-week firearms season and, perhaps the most controversial, the antler restriction — three points to a side in most parts of the state. Alt said research showed that if 1½-year-old bucks were given just one more year to live, they would reach the next gun season almost assuredly as a small eight-point — the kind of deer that in the past would have been a trophy to many a Pennsylvania hunter.

“And if they grow another year they are a wide eight-point, and another year after that they might be a 10-point,” Alt said. “It’s just as simple as that.”

Despite the opposition to the antler restriction and the assertion by many hunters that they would “shoot first and count points later,” Alt said he and game officials were surprised that, for the most part, hunters followed the rules. In a few years, many were admitting that they were seeing bigger bucks.

Alt believes the proliferation of trail cameras also helped in the effort to change the culture of decimating young spikes and four-points. Hunters were capturing images of more high and wide eight-points — or even bigger bucks — and the mood was changing.

Dzemyan, the coordinator of the KQDC who also spoke Sunday, said that 20 years later the positive effects of the shift in deer management are obvious, and he believes most hunters recognize the benefits.

“The deer herd is so much healthier today,” he said. “But it’s not just about the deer, it’s also about the habitat for all wildlife. And it’s not just about bigger bucks, it’s about a better environment for healthier does that can support twin fawns instead of one.”

The KQDC, started in 2000, is a partnership of forest landowners, forest managers, biologists, hunters and local businesses developed the program, which relies on hunters to manage deer density on a representative forested area. The KQDC is almost 75,000 acres of public and private lands managed to improve deer populations and habitat. The land is west of Bradford and north of Kane in McKean County.

Partners include the Allegheny National Forest, the Bradford Municipal Water Authority, Kane Hardwood-Collins Pine Company, and RAM Forest Products.